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For women, a glimmer of hope in South Sudan

No matter what caused the complex conflict in South Sudan, women and children are the biggest losers.

Rose Elia, 23, rests with her new-born baby after giving birth in a hospital in Yambio, South Sudan, on March 11, 2014. (JM LOPEZ / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

A woman holds her malnourished baby in the El Sabbah Pediatric Hospital in Juba on March 14, 2014. South Sudan faces possible famine if warring forces continue to flout a ceasefire deal, warns the United Nations. (IVAN LIEMAN / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

By Alana Mascoll

Mon., March 24, 2014

My first visit to South Sudan was in 2007. A few years before, I visited other East African countries, including Uganda and Tanzania, but South Sudan was different. It seemed to me the country was the Africa that I dreamed of as a little girl.

I slept in a little tukul inside a small camp as I worked to collect evidence to support the need for child protection projects in South Sudan’s Warrap State. Every day my colleagues and I would bounce around in a World Vision truck to visit different villages, where we’d often wait several hours for community members to gather for meetings.

It was at these meetings that some of the charm of working South Sudan began to wear off. Stories about violent conflict over stolen cows began to disturb me, and I became inwardly infuriated by the objectivity which local fathers used to determine their daughters’ bride price.

One of my most vivid memories was a visit to a cattle camp, where I met a 14-year-old girl who was parading herself before prospective husbands. When I was 14, I spent my free time playing mini-putt or watching movies with my friends. I wondered what kind of life a girl could have if she became a wife at such a young age.

By the end of my meetings, I had developed a dislike of men who traded their daughters for the prestige of having the largest herd of cows. I met several professional women in South Sudan, so I know the situation is not hopeless. But in a country where only 16 per cent of women are literate, being born a girl definitely comes with disadvantages.

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In February 2014, I went back to South Sudan to assist with emergency projects for some of the 700,000 people who fled their homes during violent clashes between government and rebel forces. The circumstances I faced on this trip were very different.

Visiting refugee camps, I saw that women and children make up the majority of the population. Women are vulnerable to the threat of rape as a weapon of conflict. This means that World Vision makes it a priority to consult them on important program elements, such as finding safe locations for latrines and managing water points.

As always, children are the most vulnerable victims. There were several kids who arrived at camps with no one to care for them. Elsewhere, we heard reports of boys as young as nine being drafted into various factional militias, where life would be brutal and unsettling. I lost sleep imagining the level of manipulation required to turn a boy into a soldier.

The current situation in South Sudan is incredibly complex and confusing. Many times during my most recent visit, l lost my way trying to fully understand the reasons for the fighting. The reality I was seeing with my own eyes showed time and again that no matter what caused the conflict, women and children are the biggest losers.

Yet, I also saw reasons for optimism. At a World Vision-sponsored education program in the South Sudanese capital of Juba, I had the chance to talk to young children who still have their dreams intact.

Yar, a shy 10-year-old girl, was reluctant at first to tell me her future plans. Would she end up at a cattle camp as a young child bride? I couldn’t restrain my smile when the translator told me, “She wants to be president.” I shook her hand and congratulated her. Despite the current turmoil, there are glimmers of hope for South Sudan.

Alana Mascoll is a program officer with the Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs branch of World Vision Canada. World Vision’s work in South Sudan is supported through Raw Hope, a program that reaches vulnerable children and families in fragile states, including Afghanistan, the DRC, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Syria.

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